Supporting healthy environments and livelihoods in the Congo-Nile Ridge landscape of Rwanda. Synthesis report

Rwanda’s landscape restoration commitments, aligned with an overall supportive national policy framework, provide an important opportunity to intervene to better manage the nation’s forests and other lands. As well as supporting the environment, this alignment provides significant opportunities to benefit Rwanda’s people. At present, however, landscape management as practiced in Rwanda is often unsustainable, damaging the environment and negatively affecting local communities. The purpose of the present study was to guide investment opportunities for sustainable landscape management and enhanced livelihoods in the Congo-Nile Ridge landscape and surrounding region of western Rwanda. The current report is based on a number of technical studies undertaken in 2023 and 2024 in support of this objective. In total, 24 key recommendations that support healthy environments and livelihoods in Rwanda are provided.

The first five recommendations are in support of an efficient tree seed and seedling delivery sub-sector for improving planting material used in forest management and restoration. The next four recommendations are in support of well-managed public forests through the better operationalization of the management of forest landscapes, especially for the Congo-Nile Ridge landscape and its surroundings. The next eight recommendations are in support of well-managed biodiversity and sustainable tourism, through the putting in place of more supportive plans for enhancing biodiversity and livelihoods, especially for the islands of Lake Kivu and for Gishwati-Mukura National Park in western Rwanda, which were focus areas of attention in the current study. The final set of seven recommendations relate to developing stronger incentive mechanisms for supporting trees, forests, biodiversity, sustainable tourism and improved landscape management overall.

Considering landscape management broadly in the Congo-Nile Ridge region, the incentives applied to improve management and support livelihoods should place emphasis on wide community and local business participation in managing a wide range of native plant and animal species and habitats, through both species-level and ecosystem approaches. A diverse set of native species should be targeted for biodiversity monitoring and management, and a broad range of native trees should be included in planting and value chain development programmes.

Supplementary documents:

• Report Task #1
• Report Task #2
• Report Task #3
• Report Task #4

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